


The Boxer

by ohgodmyeyes



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: 1910’s New York, Alternate Universe, Boxing, Brief and Disappointing Intimacy, Early 20th Century Freak Show, Gen, Grief, Hurt No Comfort, Manipulative Sheev Palpatine, Melancholy, One Shot, One of My Favorites, Regret, Sad Anakin, Sadness, Simon & Garfunkel - The Boxer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:14:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22174621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohgodmyeyes/pseuds/ohgodmyeyes
Summary: A boxer, having suffered an especially stinging loss, goes where his manager has instructed him in order to find a bit of comfort.As it turns out, comfort is rather difficult to come by.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker/His Own Sad Brain
Comments: 7
Kudos: 11





	The Boxer

It was freezing— absolutely freezing. The wind whipped violently, snow swirling about at its whim, as a man in a thick but badly-worn wool coat trudged through its steady buildup. He possessed a distinct air of determination, but he was injured, and the weather was currently threatening to defeat him. He’d been beaten, and beaten badly that day— which, for this particular man, was not to be entirely unexpected. His job as a boxer, after all, was to hit and be hit. He was so fast and so strong, however, that he did not too often find himself in the sort of pain which distracted him now. He wasn’t used to it, and that made his journey much more difficult than it might otherwise have been.

A car trundled past him; one of those stupid new Model T Fords. _You’d have to be an idiot to try to drive one of those things through the snow,_ thought the man to himself as he continued on. He was right, at least partially: The tires of that car lacked chains— or any other form of extra traction— and so the vehicle skidded to-and-fro on the icy road as it disappeared unsteadily behind him. He shook his head at it and went on— he thought cars were terrible. Now that everybody could buy one (and everybody _was_ buying one), they were ruining the streets.

As far as the boxer was concerned, a pair of boots was all anyone should ever need to get around; maybe a good horse, or a train ticket— if one were going a very long distance, that is. He hated taking the train nearly as much as he hated the mere existence of cars, though, and so he rarely did that anymore, either. Everywhere he went, this boxer walked. Because of his walking, he always made sure to keep his own boots in decent condition. They, however, were soaked through right now— rendering his feet nearly as cold as the air around him.

He had to get inside. Where was this goddamn place?

He stopped; looked up at the eclectic mix of structures surrounding him. Some were tall; some short, and most were hewn from brick or wood, in a variety of textures and shades. They were all lined up along the street; the street was part of a wider, ever-expanding grid, but that grid was imperceptible from the midst of itself. The boxer couldn’t see it; could only see signs rendered illegible by the weather, right now. This frustrated him.

The city really did seem to get bigger every day, and that made life much more difficult, at least for him. Everything was harder to find, here— harder than it had been at home, anyway, and getting harder all the time. However, the boxer had not been home for a while. Home felt like about a million miles away, in fact, but he didn’t like to think about that. He didn’t like to miss the simplicity of the landscape, or the company of his mother. She was dead, anyway— even if he had gone home, there’d have been no one there to greet him.

Where _was_ this goddamn place?

“Hey, kid!” The voice was loud; gruff. It cut through the wind.

The boxer turned his head. Had that been for him?

“Yeah, you. You the freak?”

Yes, he was the freak, although he hated to think of himself as such. “That’s me,” he answered anyway, as he stepped nearer to one of the buildings. The man who’d called him over was standing in the doorway to it, poking his head out. He wore an apron. Perhaps, the boxer thought, he’d found what he was looking for. He asked, “Is this The Gravy Train?” It was an ostentatious name for a gin joint, but he was in no position to judge.

“This is it. Your manager told me you’d probably show up here,” said the bartender. 

“Did he?” So Sheev had known his boxer would lose this fight. It figured.

“Yeah. Said you’d need some taking care of,” as the two stepped through the door and into the tavern. 

“A drink would be nice,” the chilly fighter admitted, as he pulled off the fur-lined hood of his coat. This revealed a hard-set face marred by cuts and bruises in various stages of healing, along with a short length of messy, amber hair— caked, in places, with blood. “I just got paid, if you’ve got a decent whiskey.”

“Oof. Sheev said you were a young guy, but you ain’t gonna look it very long workin’ for him,” the barman observed. “Ever thoughta takin’ up some factory work instead?”

That old, wet coat was deposited heavily on the back of a chair, and the boxer faced his host, grateful to be inside. “No factory’ll take me,” he said. “I’m a freak, remember?” Free of his outermost layer, now, he pulled up the sleeve of an almost-threadbare shirt to reveal his right arm— or, rather, his lack of it: Just below the elbow, his limb ended quite suddenly. There was no hand, and no forearm; just a pale, smooth stump. It looked to have been long-since healed over, but it was a bit jarring in its appearance.

“Oh, I see. Well, what else do you do?” The bartender was not impressed; not yet. He’d met guys missing pieces before. To be in Sheev’s show, a person had to be able to do something _special._

“I can fight,” answered the boxer, and he proceeded to make a fist with his left— his only— hand. It was broad and hard, and its knuckles did not line up quite properly. It looked very much unlike something to be trifled with.

“Looks like you can get beat, too,” the barman pointed out, in reference to the state of his patron’s face.

That remark went ignored. “I thought I asked about a whiskey,” as he unclenched that fist of his and pulled out the chair on which he’d placed his coat; sat down. It felt good to sit, but he knew the sensation would come back into his feet soon. If he didn’t get a drink, they’d start to feel as though they were burning. The boxer hated that.

“Whiskey— right,” and the man in the apron retreated behind the bar to get some. 

While he did, his customer looked around the establishment. It was ragged; aged— all wood. It was mostly empty right now, but it was still early— later on in the evening, it would quickly fill with eager drinkers. A long, unadorned bar ran along one wall, with the rest of the space filled by mis-matched sets of tables and chairs. A tower of stairs in the corner led to a second floor. It was nothing fancy; barely anything nice, in fact. 

_No wonder Sheev said to come here. This place suits me,_ thought the boxer, as his drink was set before him wordlessly and he was— graciously— left alone to enjoy it.

It hadn’t been a good day for him at all, between the fight he’d lost and the cold he’d endured. It felt a luxury simply to be off of his feet— which were, indeed, beginning to burn and itch. So, he tossed back the first half of his drink, and waited for its steady warmth to flow into his extremities. It couldn’t happen fast enough. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes a moment; then, he reached down into the pocket of his coat, which was still drying on the back of his chair.

He pulled out a small case, forged of tin. It slid open and shut as a box of well-crafted matches might, and the boxer had been in possession of it for a very long time. He did also have a box of decent matches, which he retrieved as well, after he’d set his tin down on the table. Slowly and deliberately, then, he went through the process of opening his case, taking a hand-rolled cigarette from out of it, placing that cigarette between his lips, and finally igniting one of his matches to light it up.

To an observer, it might have looked an awkward endeavour with only a single hand; however, the boxer was more than used to it. He breathed in deeply and closed his eyes again as he savoured the flavour of his cheap tobacco, and the evenness of his rolling technique (he was used to doing that in his own way, too). He appreciated the current emptiness of the space around him— along with automobiles and sore feet, the boxer was also not fond of excessive noise. He got enough of that while he worked; he didn’t need it now as well.

Of course, this fighter hadn’t been having the best of luck today: As if on cue, a tiny voice squealed in excitement, “It’s him!”

Those tired eyes of the boxer’s— a washed-out shade of cerulean— shot open; looked in the direction of the sound. “Me, you mean?”

“Yes, you! You’re The Boxer, aren’t you? The one-armed fighter?”

The child— a boy of about six or eight, maybe— hadn’t used the word ‘freak’, so the boxer responded kindly, “I am— but, my name is Anakin, so call me that.”

“Okay, Mister Anakin!”

A long, hard drag of his uniquely-rolled smoke; then, “...Well? What do you need, kid? It’s been a long day.”

The child had been captivated by the sight of one of his heroes outside of the ring, it seemed. “Oh! I’m sorry, sir! Just this— could you sign it? Please?” And he handed the boxer a small poster. It was printed on cheap paper with cheap ink, but it was easy for Anakin to recognize himself on it. It was a pen-and-ink impression of what some artist apparently thought he looked like before a fight: Bare muscles all tensed up; mouth twisted into a scowl. His one good hand was raised, and clad in a boxing glove; the remnant of the one he’d lost was hanging at his side.

Across the top, the poster read, “The Fighting Freak,” and along the bottom, there was an invitation: One for audience members to pay to try to fight Anakin, if they were brave enough. Men often thought they could; assumed that they would have no trouble beating a fighter who was missing a limb, but the boxer who disdained being called ‘The Fighting Freak’ never lost to those kinds of challengers.

He sighed, now, as he looked at the child’s impression of him. “Yeah, okay— you got a pen?”

The boy did not have a pen, but he did have a pencil. Anakin used that to scribble his name onto the poster with his hand. The child, delighted, ascended the stairs in the corner very happily; soon, he was out of view.

Once he was, the one-armed fighter tried to close his eyes again. He did succeed; succeeded long enough to finish his cigarette, when he was interrupted by another voice. It was high-pitched, but not like the last one: This voice did not belong to a child.

“Hey, you. You’re a _handsome_ freak, aren’tchya?”

That word again. “I don’t make a habit out of looking in mirrors,” as he finished the last half of his drink.

“Well, if you did, you’d know,” the woman answered, as she set a replacement down in front of him. She had a drink for herself, too, and she sat down opposite Anakin, holding it.

“What do _you_ need?” He hated to be rude, but he was tired, and Sheev had told him this would be a good place to recover from the fight he’d lost. That fight hadn’t been against someone from the crowd; it had been against someone a bit like him— another ‘freak’. Anything to sell tickets. This freak had been stronger, though, and Anakin had been put down handily. Aside from being in pain, he felt embarrassed, and wanted to be left alone. 

“Well, my boss said your boss said you needed _me_ ,” she answered. “Besides, you were sweet to my boy— he told me you signed his poster, so I really oughta thank you.”

“I wrote my name on a piece of paper,” retorted Anakin.

“He’s your biggest fan,” the woman said.

“Does he know I’m not a real boxer?” 

“You hit people, don’tchya?” 

Anakin laughed at this. “In a freak show.”

She shrugged, “You’re real to my kid.”

Anakin started his second drink; the one the woman had brought him. He was silent.

“So— you gonna come upstairs, or not?” She looked and sounded like she thought he already ought to have understood.

“What?”

“Upstairs. I’m s’posed to help you feel better.” She motioned toward the staircase. “It’s my job.”

He sighed again. It would be just like Sheev to do this. He didn’t want it. “You’re not a nurse, are you?”

She laughed, this time. “Nah, I ain’t no nurse. But I might be able to ease your pain a bit,” as she stared at a particularly badly-bruised section of his face.

“I’ve got all I need,” replied Anakin, as he took another sip of his new drink. He added, “Thanks, though.” She wasn’t ugly, or anything approaching it— it was simply that he was only interested in one woman, and that woman already happened to have died. He didn’t need anybody, now. Anybody other than his manager, Sheev, anyway. Sheev was going to make him famous... or, that’s what Anakin used to think, at least.

He didn’t know what he thought anymore. 

“Come _on_ ,” she cajoled. “Your boss already paid for it. Aren’t you fighting-guys usually supposed to... y’know... _hold that in?_ ” She smiled, now. “He must really want you to be happy.”

“Yeah.” Anakin finished his second drink; sighed, “He must.” 

He stared at this woman, now; stared intently. She was young, maybe younger than he was. She was also small; delicate-looking, almost. The dark of winter had rendered her skin a milky alabaster, and she had a long, soft mane of brunette hair. He shouldn’t have, but he liked it.

If he tilted his head, and squinted— and lost himself in his two tall whiskeys— she almost reminded him of someone; someone who had been very special to him. 

He thought.

“One more of these,” he motioned to his two empty glasses, “might seal the deal. Okay?”

She grinned, now. The boxer really was very handsome, even if he didn’t seem to know it. “Okay.” And she got up to get what he’d asked for.

While he waited for her to come back, Anakin smoked another cigarette.

...

“Ooh, lookit those big muscles! C’mere, sweetheart— they look cold.”

“I...” The boxer was in the middle of undressing; the woman was, too, although she was seated on her bed upstairs. He was still standing at the foot of it, very slowly unbuttoning his worn shirt with his one hand. Again, he hated to be rude, but, “...You said he already paid you, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Then do you think you could do something for me?”

“Sure, honey. Name it.”

“Do you think you could try not to talk?” 

She looked hurt, momentarily... but then she just seemed annoyed. “Yeah. Okay,” and she resumed shedding her dress. It was long, but simple. Her underclothes followed, and she presented herself, nude, to her reluctant client. Maybe, she thought, he was just shy about his arm.

That wasn’t it, but he wasn’t about to tell her why he wanted her to keep her trap shut— it wouldn’t have been polite.

The boxer took a deep breath; squinted at her. Would his little trick work again? He tilted his head as he kicked his boots away (they were still damp). Then, he tugged on his belt, wrenched off his trousers, and focused on his own drunkenness. He focused on it very, very hard as he continued to stare.

 _Good enough,_ he decided dejectedly, after a few long moments. _Or, as good as this is going to get._

She was pretty, he thought, but she was not his— and he could definitely tell. As he climbed atop her, he noted to his own discomfort how very unfamiliar she felt to him. The curves of her body came at _just_ the wrong places; the sounds she made as he placed his weight atop her sounded a little off-key. The slick glide of pushing himself into her, even, was not quite right— and she’d been very eager for him, at least before he’d told her to stop speaking.

Nothing was wrong, here. Not technically.

However, the whole thing felt anything but right.

 _Too late now,_ thought Anakin, and he, quite literally, pushed forward with Sheev’s cruel farce. As he did, he closed his eyes, held himself up with that one strong, brutal arm of his— the one with which he earned his living— and thought of the woman he actually wanted to have writhing beneath him.

By the time he’d done his work, and she had done her’s, the poor boxer was sweaty, and tearful. He heaved himself up and off of her, stood unsteadily, and wiped his eyes with his hand. She looked up at him, a bit confused— but then again, he was supposed to be a freak, wasn’t he? Of course he was going to be strange— all the men Sheev sent to her were strange.

None of them had ever been quite this pretty, though— missing arm or not.

Oh well. It didn’t matter if he was pretty, now, or downright hideous. She’d been paid— and that was that.

The boxer, for his part, seemed in no mood to stay and rest; not here: He was already putting his pants back on. His shirt followed. He went slowly, on account of the loss for which he had to compensate; however, he was also both deliberate and apt. Soon he looked not unlike he had when he’d entered the room in the first place— the only notable exceptions being the freshness of his sweaty sheen, and the teary redness of his eyes.

Those things would both go away quickly, however. A cigarette, and maybe one more drink, would help. It was not loud downstairs; not yet, and so that is where Anakin ventured wordlessly, as the woman put herself back together in similar silence.

For a fleeting moment, he hoped that she would not tell her son— his fan— the kind of man he really was. It had felt nice to be admired; valued... if only briefly. 

As the spot in which he’d previously been sitting came into view, he noticed gratefully that his coat and his box of cigarettes were still where he had left them. A few more patrons milled about than had when he’d arrived, but not enough of them to make him feel uncomfortable. He stopped at the bar on his way to his seat; ordered one more whiskey. 

_Doing that just made you miss her more, you clown._ It had, indeed, done just that. Anakin already regretted the woman from upstairs, but he was used to regretting things— especially the things Sheev made him do. That guy had made a lot of promises since taking the boxer under his wing, and he’d kept almost none of them... but the one-armed fighter stayed anyway, because who else would have him?

No one, certainly, now that his love was dead: No one else in the whole world was kind enough to love a freak like him, he thought. So, Sheev and his show were Anakin’s best bet, now.

He very often felt like he was going nowhere, and fast— but he also felt that nowhere was the only place he had to go.

At least his feet didn’t hurt.

He sat down to drink and smoke anyway; thought he might be able to relax a bit, now, before this place got too busy and he’d feel the need to leave. One more time, he lit a cigarette, sipped his drink, and tried to close his eyes.

This time, unfortunately, he did not even get half-way through his hard-earned pleasure.

“Hey, you!” 

_Not me again..._

“Hey, freak!”

 _Goddamn it._ Those dull-blue eyes pulled themselves open once more, as reluctantly as ever. “What?” 

“I’ve got a bit of a score to settle with you, buddy,” said a man, approaching from the back of the room.

“I think you’re mistaken,” the boxer started, but the man was not mistaken, and they both knew it.

This was, the man knew, the infamous one-armed ‘fighting freak’— the fellow who had beaten his brother handily not even a month ago. That brother had been out of work for more than a week after his fight with Anakin, and their family had suffered for it.

Nevermind that he had volunteered himself; stepped into the ring willingly. In his protective sibling’s mind, this boxer was to blame.

“I ain’t mistaken. Stand up, you dimwit— you owe me a round.”

Anakin sighed yet again. This guy didn’t mean he wanted a drink. “I don’t think I owe you—”

_Whack._

And the boxer was on the floor, left to push himself up with his arm— which he did, and quickly, because a man who’ll hit you sitting down is also a man who’ll use his boots on you, if he gets you down to the floor.

Once on his feet, Anakin swung, but he was tired; so tired— and hurt, and drunk, and still suffering the effects of bad sex he’d quickly regretted. He missed because of this, and while his head was turned the wrong way, the other man landed another punch.

This punch drew blood; as he wiped his mouth with the loose sleeve hanging from the end of his lost limb, he noticed it. He thought he’d been done bleeding today; had wanted to be done bleeding today.

But, he wasn’t going to lose. Not twice.

So, he tried again— tried, in spite of all of his different kinds of pain. He lined up his crooked, jutting knuckles one more time; focused his vision in the small amount of time he knew he had to do so. Once he’d done that, he threw his fist out again, using everything he thought he had left.

 _Thank you._

Anakin did not know if he was thanking God, or himself, or his own hand. Something here, however, had worked in his favour: His punch connected this time, and the man who’d had the gall to bother the boxer just for doing his job went down. 

He went down hard, much as his brother had.

He lay on the floor; quiet, unmoving. He was breathing, at least, so Anakin knew he was not dead— it would have taken a much luckier shot to do that. As he wiped his mouth on his sleeve again, the bartender who’d spotted him on the street rushed over. He was clearly irritated.

“What the hell is this?”

“He started it,” said Anakin quietly, as he peered down at his newly-defeated opponent.

The bartender didn’t seem to care who had started it. “Buddy, you’re the one still standin’ here bleedin’ all over my place of business, so I’m gonna hafta tell you t’leave— _now_.”

It was still snowing outside; still blustery, and freezing— except now, it was darker. 

Anakin did not know if he could make it home tonight.

“Could I just stay until—”

“No! Get out, you freak, or I’ll send for Sheev and tell him you started a fight in my bar.”

 _Fine, then._ “Alright— I’m sorry,” and that was that.

The boxer packed up his tobacco, and his matches. He lifted his coat from off the back of his chair; found that it was, like his boots, actually still quite damp. It didn’t matter, though. He put it back on, slowly and deliberately— which is how he did everything, except for fighting, and fucking— and made his way out of The Gravy Train through the same door he’d entered, not long ago.

He didn’t feel better.

In fact, he thought as his boot sank into a fresh drift of snow, he felt considerably worse. _Sheev said I’d like that place,_ his mind grumbled at him. _Sheev says a lot of things, though, doesn’t he?_

Sheev always had, ever since he’d recruited Anakin for his show— and sometimes, those things he’d said had even been true. More often, however, they’d been lies— just not quite often enough for his young boxer to break away from him, and leave. 

Anyway, once again: Who else would have a freak like him?

 _No one,_ thought the boxer. _Absolutely no one,_ as he resumed his lonely journey into the icy winter night. He wanted to cry, but was too afraid of his eyes freezing shut to let himself do that.

The familiar sensation of his face beginning to swell up, at least, was quelled a little bit by the chill.

**Author's Note:**

> Maybe this one was a stretch, but I needed it out of my head. I was pretty much full-emo by 2005, and I also loved my mom’s really old folk rock, so this song always made me think of Ani.
> 
> Maybe I’m just a nutter. :D


End file.
